It's Good To Be Back

AS a player back in the days of three-point tries, double banking in the lines out and hookers who actually hooked, I was never a huge fan of pre-season training. Our club had a captain who was an SAS veteran, he was followed by a gun runner: ie a former matelot who had been in one of the teams who took part in the annual Field Gun Display at the Royal Tournament.

Both these lock forwards maintained the necessary level of psychotic agression necessary for playing in the front five in Ayrshire rugby back then by training like Ninjas - a lot of the rest of us weren't so keen, me included.

But, I have never had a problem getting psyched-up for games, or for dishing-out (and taking) the gratuitous violence which was such a big part of rugby back then. Believe me, today's players while by no means softies, don't have to endure half of the things which went on 30 or 40 years ago -although they are a lot fitter than we were.

So, it was with a light heart that I trotted off to cover one of Saturday's opening Premiership games. A rather good one it was too. Lots of aggressive rucking and counter-rucking; three or four well-worked driving mauls; off-loading and continuation rugby of a high standard, some breathtaking long-range tries and one or two sublime pieces of skill and invention from the backs on both sides.

But - and you just knew a "but" was coming: once again the game was, to a certain extent, spoiled by the refereeing. You don't need to tell me that Scottish refereeing standards are poor - there is narry a Hosie, Fleming or Sansom to be seen today. The IRB clearly don't rate our whistlers - none will be on-duty during the World Cup. But, considering some of the Welsh wombles and Irish idiots we suffer in the Celtic League on an annual basis have made the cut - what does the IRB know about refereeing?

I have to say, the most-impressive referees I saw last season were a trio of English guys, who had charge of British & Irish Cup ties. Fit, concise, clear in their decision-making, in-tune with the game, they made even the alleged best of our bunch look poor.

We really MUST get our refereeing standards raised. Our players, the best of the best of the play mainly for fun club players, deserve better.

Meanwhile, as Andy Robinson and his boys settle into their Australian holding camp, let's hope they manage to avoid last-minute injuries and illnesses and cross the Tasman Sea in good heart for the World Cup.

I don't expect us to win the thing, but, I have one of those feelings - that we will qualify at least for the last eight - if that qualification is ahead of, or better still, at the expense of, the English - so much the better.



New Zealand Here We Come

WELL, all the conjecture is over - Andy Robinson has named the 30-man Rugby World Cup squad to travel to New Zealand. It's up to the 30-players and the more than 20-strong off-field team now.

They are certainly under pressure. Scotland expects, at the very least, a last-eight place - and when you consider that, on-paper we are only the third-rated side in our five-team preliminary group, that isn't going to be easy.

But, we are on a roll, we've won our last three games on the bounce and need not fear Argentina and England, indeed, without 80,000 Barbour-clad "Hooray Henries" harrumphing behind them, with the whole of New Zealand, not to say the rest of the world, digging away at them and with their own over-excited and over-demanding press playing their part, I fancy that an England squad, some of whom believe their own publicity, will fall apart and are very beatable.

But, we MUST pray for the continued good health of "Chunk" Jacobsen, hope that the line-breaking Lamont brothers can learn peripheral vision and agame-awareness and that we do not rue the absence of Johnnie Beattie.

We can, at least, make the quarter-finals. We will be the New Zealand public's "second team" - go fot it lads.

BACK home, the club game finally gets serious this weekend, with the first league matches. This promises to be a very interesting season, with the clubs vying for truly national status come 2012-13.

Over the last few seasons it has effectively been a three-horse race at the top: Ayr, Currie and Melrose being the big three. But, their success has come at a price, with several of last season's big club players moving up to the full-time professional game.

I watched Ayr being humbled by London Scottish on Friday night at Richmond. Admittedly Kenny Murray's squad was somewhat shorn of bulk and experience, but, they scrambled well in defence and caused Scottish some problems in attack.

Ayr are lacking in the front five, which is new, but their new new, more-expansive game, just might catch the rest out.

Invercargill Here We Come

FOLLOWING Saturday's late Murrayfield win over "an Irish XV" (this was no-way a full-strength Irish side), we can truly say the Scots are on the road to New Zealand and the World Cup, which for them begins against Romania, in Invercargill.

Never been there, but I can tell you it was just about Gordon Brown's least-favourite place in the world, and he had been to Dalmellington. The capital of Southland is apparently such a dreich place, redolent of areas of the Third World, the Romanians will maybe feel more at home there. That said, Invercargill was apparently founded by Scots emigrants, so our lads will receive an even warmer welcome than is the norm, even in that traditionally hospitable Land of the Long White Cloud.

There has been some debate about Andy Robinson's pre-World Cup schedule; some say he's playing too-few games; some say the build-up lacks intensity - all I know is: he's already coached one team to World Cup victory.

In truth, he has our two opening WC games, against Romania and Georgia in which to finally fine-tune his preparations. If we cannot beat these two, with the squad we've got - we might as well not get onto the plane. Matches against Italy, Romania and Georgia SHOULD have us nicely fired-up for the two which matter, against Argentina and Them - you know, the Common Enemy, that over-hyped lot in white.

I honestly fancy we can top our group, if we get a fair crack from the referees - something which will be more-easily accomplished since the men with the whistles in New Zealand will not have the advice of 80,000 Barbour-wearing Hooray Henries when we play England.

But, although we beat the Irish, we still have an edge to find. Wee things to tidy-up, subtle changes to make. However, a World Cup campaign isn't like a one-off international, it is even more intense than a Six Nations tournament. But, Robinson's been over the course before and I am sure he will have us firing on all cylinders from the word go.

At least, we won on Saturday - and, we scored a try. Let's be thankful for small mercies and trust that the build-up continues without incident. We need a morale-boosting World Cup and I think we will get one. 

The Pulse Quickens

WITH the announcement of the Scotland team to face Ireland in Saturday's pre-World Cup warm-up game, the pulses are definitely quickening and the big show in the Land of the Long White Cloud will soon be upon us.

Andy Robinson's team is pretty-much as expected: inasmuch as nobody really had a clue as to what it would be, other than we expected one or two of the outsiders for a place on the aircraft to New Zealand to get a run out.

I would suggest that, by their restriction to the bench the youngsters Denton and Cuthbert will be challenged to make a serious impact off the bench, or reconcile themselves to watching the World Cup on TV. Likewise, big Jim Hamilton has to hit the ground running or he's toast.

Johnnie Beattie should still go, class is, after all, permanent - but he needs a biggish game while Dickinson, when he comes on, also has to get up to speed immediately or risk missing out.

I am looking forward to an entertaining game, which will hopefully lift our spirits on the build-up to the tournament and, for once, performance is more-important than the result.

I HAD to laugh at some of the English press coverage of the Phillips/Tindal nuptials in Edinburgh over the weekend. Talk about printing p!sh, it was wonderful.

Leaving aside such bad manners as referring to those of the Royal Family who have both Scottish and English titles by their English titles - rather than the Scottish ones and the hilarious use of the word "altar" for the communion table inside the Canongate Kirk - these merely reinforce my belief that Scotland is a small, far-off country of which those in the London media bubble know little and care even less.

What really got me laughing was the insinuation that the mainly English rugby players who filled the Tindall side of the kirk were up there on an old-fashioned bender.

Aye right - I am certain strong drink was consumed, but any notion that those England World Cup squad members who were there went at the bevvy in the manner of an Old Fartingers Extra B XV on an Easter Tour to the West Country, circa 1960, were surely wide of the mark.

Today's top players don't bevvy like it's 1974 - such is their level of fitness, the demands made on them as regards training and conditioning, they couldn't possibly live with an old-style team in the bar - just as the old-style team couldn't live with them on the park.

I am told by several old-timers, who are still inside the game as coaches, directors of rugby and so forth that today's players are either fully TT or drink so little that a whiff from a newly-opened bottle of 18-year-old Glenlivet would flatten them immediately.